Reader Submission: R-Haan, a restaurant serving traditional Thai cuisine

As a result of Lung Jan's inspiring culinary series, I finally decided to put some words on paper for this blog. I am also a great fan of 'fine dining' and in the Netherlands I have visited just about every star restaurant. Since I have a relationship in Thailand, a world has opened up for me in that area as well.

Four times a year I fly to Bangkok to be with my boyfriend and each time we visit one beautiful place in the City of Angels. On December 27 of last year we ended up in R-Haan, a restaurant with traditional Thai cuisine, which had just received its second Michelin star. The name, which is nothing more than the Thai word for food, is as humble as the staff and the appearance of the place for a restaurant of this class.

Upon arrival, we are kindly led to comfortable lounge chairs and we receive the menu with aperitifs and a small snack beforehand. Soon we are led to our table. The snacks are left behind, so we didn't have time to try them. Unfortunately, they are no longer reproduced.

We choose it tonight Royal Symphony Thai Samrub winter menu, consisting of ten courses and also take the matching wines.

The cocktail my friend chose is called Baitong, which is Thai for banana leaf. It consists of rum, Malibu, pineapple juice, honey, coconut milk syrup and lime and is garnished with dried banana. The cocktail is mainly sweet, but has a sour aftertaste, which makes it refreshing and well prepared for what is to come.

I myself take the slightly more daring one Tomyum-Tamgang. Tom yum is of course well known, but tomyum-tamgang means something like 'treacherous, lying' in Thai and that is exactly right with this drink. Like the dish, the cocktail contains, in addition to lemongrass, galangal and bergamot, quite a bit of chili. The smell and taste are very intense.

We get an amuse-bouche, inspired by the Thai dish Miang Pla Too. The mackerel caught in the Mae Klong is wrapped in aromatic spices with steamed rice. On it is Thai caviar. The whole is served under a glass dome with fragrant smoke, so that the smoke flavor can develop even further on the table. The spicy taste, the crispy elements and the slightly sour set the tone for a wonderful evening. My friend indicates that he gets a nostalgic feeling from this first dish.

As the first real course we get the Eleven-year-old salad. The chef himself comes to the table to explain how this dish got its name: the basis of this dish was laid when he first cooked something for his mother at the age of eleven. The plate features a perfectly cooked tiger prawn from Chanthaburi. This is covered with Thai herbs and banana blossom. At the table, the chef writes '11' in tamarind sauce next to the shrimp on the plate. The sauce has that perfect, typical Thai balance between sweet, sour, salty and pungent. The sharpness of the sauce is perfectly supported by the served Spanish sauvignon blanc, which is no easy task.

The first of two entrees is called Trio of travels through Thailand. The Thai name on the menu consists of the word 'travel' in various dialects. On the plate we find three small dishes. On the left a satay of barbecued pheasant with Szechuan peppercorns. In the center is a piece of catfish, wrapped in neem leaves, with a sweet fish sauce. Finally, we find a fried salad of Angus beef from Buriram. The catfish in particular is fantastic. The sweet-salty taste of the fish sauce enhances the savory taste of the earthy fish.

The second starter is the highlight of the evening: the duck egg yolk confit from Saraburi with spicy fish sauce, rice berry sponge cake and Palo sauce, a Thai soup based on various spices. The yolk is great. The sauce supports the velvety texture of the yolk. With the sponge cake we can make sure that not a drop of the sauce and the yolk remains on the plate. Breathtaking.

From the Khao Yai National Park, about 100 kilometers northeast of Bangkok, come the mulberries from which the ice cream that we are served as a snack is made. It lies on a dish with dry ice, on which warm water is poured at the table. It doesn't do anything for the taste, but the effect is nice. The sour ice cream makes sure your stomach is ready for the main course.

And that's the Samrub from the title of the menu, or a table full of small dishes to enjoy together. Everyone gets a bowl of rice and you share the rest. At the beginning of the evening you could choose from two variants and we each chose a different one, so that we can now taste as many different things as possible.

The most striking are two distillation columns in which the soups receive their final preparation. A tom yum with fresh herbs and a chicken consommé with galangal. Furthermore, the table is filled with pork feet curry, crispy bacon with spicy kaffir lime dip, coconut stew with herbs, shrimps and 18 months aged anchovies and fried sea bass. But the highlight is the sharp yellow curry with the flesh of the blue crab and young noni leaves. I don't know the latter, but it also seems to be a kind of mulberry. It is on the spicy side for the westerner, but you want to keep eating it. The texture, the spicy smell of the curry and the crab: every taste and smell reinforces each other.

I'm not a dessert fan. If a restaurant offers the opportunity to exchange the sweet for cheese, I always take it with both hands. The choice remains out, so I have to eat sweet. That's not exactly a punishment today: we get crunchy chocolate from Chiang Mai in the shape of a fruit from the cocoa plant. In addition, vanilla ice cream and the classic sticky rice with mango. A good glass of port supports the taste of the chocolate perfectly.

The very last thing we get are some friandises for coffee: mung beans with coconut milk, bael fruit jelly, sun-dried rice with wild honey and a glazed strawberry. A nice end to a nice evening.

We really enjoyed our first time in such a good restaurant with traditional Thai cuisine. Apart from some clumsy staff (a lot of falling plates and wine that is poured too early or too late), the evening was great and for 5000 baht per person all-in, you don't pay the top price you normally pay in a place with two stars. The fact that the most important ingredients are always indicated where they come from makes eating at R-Haan a truly versatile culinary journey throughout Thailand in one evening from your seat in Bangkok.

Submitted by BuurmanRuud